who sought their favour. We may well compare the adoration offered to Al Lat, 'Uzza' and Manah,
the "daughters1 of GOD" as they were termed, or to Wudd,2 Ya'uq
Hubal, and other such semi-divine beings, with the saint-worship of the Roman and Greek Churches and
the worship of the Pirs or holy men by the great mass of Indian Muhammadans at the present
day. The word Mushrikuna used in the Qur'an3 to describe the adorers of such
deities as these expresses this fact very well, meaning as it does not exactly "Polytheists,"
but rather "associators of partners with GOD."

§ 4.It is well known that idolatry prevailed very largely, in Mecca especially, before the

Arabian
Idolatry:
its Origin.

reforms instituted by Muhammad. There are said to have been no less than 360 idols4 in
the Ka'aba itself, which had become a kind of Pantheon for that part of Arabia. But Ibn Ishaq and
Ibn Hisham agree in stating that idolatry5 had been introduced among the Arabs only a
comparatively short period before, and inform us on the authority of Muhammad himself that the
person6 who
1 Surah xvi. 59[57]: وَيَجْعَلُونَ لِلّهِ الْبَنَاتِV. also Surah liii., vv. 19, 20, 21, 28[27].2 Vide Abu'l Fida, "Hist. Ante-Islamica," Fleischer's ed., p. 180.3E.g., Surah ix. 114, et passim.4 Muir, "Life of Mahomet," p. 423, note.5 "Siratu'r Rasul," Egyptian edition, pp. 27, sqq.6Ibid., p. 27:

إنّهُ كان اوّلا ً من دين اسمَعيل فنصب
الاوثان‫ ....‬

THE ORIGIN OF ISLAM.

137

introduced the first idol into Mecca was a certain 'Amr bin Lahi. The story is that this man
"went1 from Mecca to Syria on some business of his, and when he reached a station in
the district of Balqa ... he saw them worshipping idols.2 Then he said to them, 'What
are these images that I see you worshipping?' They said to him, 'These are idols which we worship;
and we ask them for rain and they rain, or if we ask their aid they assist us.' Then he said to
them, 'Will you not give me one of these idols? and then I shall go with it to the land of the Arabs
and they will thereupon worship it.' They therefore gave him an idol which was called Habal (or
Hubal). He brought it to Mecca and set it up there, and commanded people to worship and glorify
it." Another introducer of false religion into Mecca is said to have been

1Ibid., Pt. I., p. 27, sqq.2 Peculiar veneration, almost amounting to worship, was even from very ancient times
(Herod., iii. 8) paid to stones by the Arabs. Regarding this, Ibn Ishaq writes (p. 27) "They
fancy that the first there was of the worship of stones among the children of Ishmael consisted in
this, that no one of them used to travel from Mecca at a time of distress, when they were praying
for relief, without taking with him one of the stones of the Haram" (the Holy Temple)
"as a sign of reverence for the Haram; and wherever the travellers halted they set it up
and performed the Tawwaf ceremony round it, as they did around the Ka'aba,until this
custom of theirs seduced them to whichever of the stones they approved of. And it pleased them to
such an extent that
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